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OTTAWA — If many Canadians are not prepared to give Stephen Harper the benefit of the doubt on the Senate spending scandal, it is because the prime minister has never bothered to earn the benefit of the doubt.

This is a man who plays politics his way, exuding a steely and cool competence, not much worried if voters don’t warm to him as long as they see his government as efficient.

He practises a brand of politics that fosters cynicism, and those cynics now refuse to believe he was unaware of the deal cut in his office between his recently resigned chief of staff Nigel Wright and former Conservative senator Mike Duffy.

It is also because of the inconsistencies littering the political landscape that make it difficult to accept that a $90,000 payoff for an embattled senator — a political problem for the prime minister — happened with Harper in the dark about it.

It is not a given that Harper was shielded from the details by which Wright made the Duffy problem disappear, but it is likely. And it is difficult to believe that such a risk-averse prime minister would roll everything on this by saying he was kept in the dark if he wasn’t.

Still, we don’t know how Harper told Wright to make the problem disappear. We don’t whether someone other than Wright may have kept Harper in the loop. We don’t know if others in Harper’s office were involved.

If Harper was involved, Wright will presumably have to reveal that to the ethics commissioner probing the deal.

The relationship between prime minister and chief of staff varies, based on the personalities of the players involved, but there was no doubt Harper trusted the judgment of his loyal ally.

The main issue raised by skeptics is how far out of character this would appear to be for a prime minister who has centralized so much decision-making and communications policy in his office.

As recently as mid-February, with Sen. Pamela Wallin under fire, Harper would even have us believe he was poring over expense accounts in the evening.

“In terms of Sen. Wallin, I have looked at the numbers,” Harper told the House of Commons. “Her travel costs are comparable to any parliamentarian travelling from that particular area of the country over that period of time.”

Reminded by NDP leader Tom Mulcair of his comments two weeks later, Harper chose not to even mention Wallin’s name, saying the matter was in the hands of the Senate. His spokesman Andrew MacDougall said the prime minister did not personally review Wallin’s expenses; he simply noted they were comparable to other travel claims from Saskatchewan.

Regardless, we were left to ponder this: he is sufficiently hands-on to check out spending reports from Saskatchewan politicians in order to defend Wallin but he did not even ask about the resolution of the festering Duffy problem being taken care of in his own office?

Then there was the curious gap of almost a week before Harper told us he had not been consulted about or had any knowledge of the Duffy-Wright deal.

Like Rob Ford, who waited a week before confronting his demons, Harper’s anger, disappointment and contrition were diluted with the passage of time between allegation and response.

“He should have told me earlier,” Harper said of Wright. “That’s why I accepted his resignation upon reflection. Should I have reached that conclusion earlier? Perhaps.”

Duffy, with a wink, has promised to tell the “whole story,” a pledge that must have sent shivers through Harper’s office.

Duffy says he wants Senate committee hearings re-examining his expenses to be held in public. That will be up to the committee.

Contrary to an earlier column on this subject, Government Senate leader Marjory LeBreton says she is not blocking public hearings but will abide by whatever decision the committee makes.

Open hearings are an imperative. It’s taxpayers’ money being examined, and this whole sorry saga has been devoid of any of transparency from the start.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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